Dean Keppel Warns of Lack of Able Teachers

A severe shortage of teachers will seriously impah standards of elementary and secondary school education next year and will soon be felt by the colleges, Francis Keppel '38, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, warned yesterday.

The School of Education is considering definite new plans to alleviate the teacher shortage, but "they are not yet entirely formulated and I cannot discuss them at this time." He indicated, however, that the school would announce a program of expansion some time in January.

As the situation now stands, only 85,000 instead of the needed 150,000 instructors will enter teaching on the school level next year, Keppel stated. He explained that despite efforts by the School of Education and other institutions to send more men into pre-college teaching, the number of prospective secondary school teachers has clearly declined.

College Graduates Decrease

"The distressing thing is that the number of college graduates entering secondary school teaching has dropped from about 80,000 to about 50,000 at a time when the schools need them more than ever before," Keppel stated. "The only result can be an increase in the size of school classes and an inevitable decline in the standards of education."

The School of Education is already operating a special program among New England-area colleges to increase the number of graduates of liberal arts colleges entering elementary and secondary school education, Keppel said.

This program is operated in cooperation with 29 liberal arts colleges in the Northeast, extending from Philadelphia in the south to Bates and Colby in the north. Under the terms of the plan, graduates of the colleges who are especially interested in secondary school teaching apply to Harvard for the special program.

"Three years ago, there were only 40 applicants," Keppel said. "Now the number is up to 250, even though our present facilities limit us to 100 men a year."

The growth in pupil enrollments is forcing school systems to employ increasing numbers of only partially qualified teachers, Keppel continued,

He pointed out it would be impossible ever to gain all the needed instructors from among college graduates.

"At present there are only a little over 300,000 bachelors degrees being offered in the country. To fill present demands would mean that over half of them would have to choose teaching as a career."